Maeve: her programming was to leave the park. Her choice was to return. Dolores: her programming was to not kill, to fulfill her role as caretaker or sort of child project. She chose to kill and lead in the process Both went against their programming, arguably as part of fords whole plan. Ford: the ...

The Man in Black does have special powers inside Westworld (such as turning cigars into explosives) that come from being a major (if not majority) shareholder in the company that owns the park. But I don't think those powers include wallhacks. I just presumed that he snuck a spe...

yeah, it wasn't bad. Thought, despite what I just said, I actually think the most recent Supermans (even the Batman vs) were the best. I also loved Amazing Spiderman, but thought the second was even awesomer. I hope Spiderman: Homecoming is distinctly after his origin, is all I'm saying. We've seen ...

Clinton put information in an insecure place; Patraeus literally just handed it over to a civilian. I think this is an important distinction to be noted. Not only did Patraeus willingly just hand over top secret information to a civilian, but it was to his mistress. Clinton was irresponsible with h...

The peaceful transfer of power is predicated on trusting the outcome of the election. Evidently we have finally managed to fuck that up. Oh joy. When the head of the NSA states that something was afoot, I think it's safe to assume something may be afoot. Though, Trump won Michigan by two tenths of ...

Honestly, the only recount outcome that I think isn't catastrophic is that clear and evident foreign government tampering is discovered. All America needs for unity is a common enemy to rally against? I think it would be hard for even the most ridiculous of Trumpeteers to say that Russian hacking o...

Honestly, the only recount outcome that I think isn't catastrophic is that clear and evident foreign government tampering is discovered. All America needs for unity is a common enemy to rally against? I think it would be hard for even the most ridiculous of Trumpeteers to say that Russian hacking o...

Some snails move by surfing. Some vertebrates move by brachiating. Another vertebrate uses its tail as a counterweight and 'rudder' whilst sprinting. Some vertebrates run on their toes, while some run on their hands. I think there's a reason why bauplan is definitely already a way things are classif...

connection is stronger than her political convictions Ehhhhhhhhh... Like I said, the past 8 years have demonstrated that my mother would rather fight about politics than connect. Don't hold it as an ultimatum or anything of course. But just be happy with that connection. I was uninvited from Thanks...

Bernard: Lifelike, but not alive. Pain always exists in the mind; it's always imagined. So what's the difference between my pain and yours, between you and me? Ford: This was the very question that consumed Arnold, filled him with guilt, eventually drove him mad. The answer always seemed ob...

Yes, yes, this, exactly this. I am absolutely stunned at how those on the right who were HORRIFIED at the whispers of Obama's 'corruption' and spent 8 years foaming at the mouth about it, but everything that's going on now is NBD. The way I feel about this now makes me somewhat sympathetic to 9/11 t...

Very much so! I absolutely recognize that my echo chamber is simply non-overlapping with their echo chamber, and I think that's a problem for multiple reasons, and what led to the rise of post-truth America. It's why I'm saying we live in different worlds. That said, the point that there's simply no...

A lot of my Facebook friends post stuff from like, OccupyDemocrats.com and DemocracyNow.com. I wouldn't consider those particularly exemplary news sources. But even Fox News has featured stories about how fake news outperformed real news this election cycle, and given that I think Fox News actually ...

What gmalivuk said. Also, prior to this election, one of my big sticking points was 'science education, funding, the environment, and getting rid of pseudoscience'. I recognize that the left is guilty of the pseudoscience part - a lot of very liberal people think alt-science/med is a good thing, aka...

Don't panic. I'll remind you we are in the early stages of the Trump Era. In the first two years we will find out who is who and what is what. It's not panic about Trump as it is panic about how indifferent to reality the right has become. I lament the far left and their insistence on pseudoscience...

Trump has contradicted himself sentence to sentence, and no one seems to care. People currently seeing what they want to see, they are filtering. In time the filters will fray. Trump has no real record in terms of his ability to do this job. He's a cypher. I'm very hopeful that this will happen bef...

But again, he came back from those Bankruptcies and defaults only because he had the money to afford the lawyers that could exploit the tax loophole. Exactly how much of Trump's financial activity are you privy to? This is a known fact - when his casino's failed, he didn't take a loss, other people...

I've tried underlining at times that there are strong parallels between what the Jews experienced in Nazi Germany and what both has happened in America and what may happen, but that's washed away as being hyperbolic. I've also tried pointing out that their fears were unfounded and nothing came of th...

Also, don't forget one of the central Muggle characters is a 'Salemist'. I think that's a pretty deliberate point - the relationship between Wizards and Muggles has been pretty rocky for a while, and this is just sort of where they are now with it. IIRC, one of the points in the Harry Potter books i...

I'm not clear on why you're asking this here, then. How does the structures in the bodies of oysters and plants that give the organisms their shape compare to the skeletons, exoskeletons, or soft-tissue system of animals? Are you asking for fictional science purposes, or to understand evolution? An...

I was linked to this post that presents, let's say, curious viewpoint on Trump's racism and our (the left wing) reaction to it. The media (and others) are still crying wolf on Trump A couple excerpts to highlight the main points and blogger's main line of reasoning: 4. Aren’t there a lot of voters ...

He's literally trolling you. In addition to the fact that this is a serious problem in and of itself, it reminds me of the way Republicans complained in 2008 that they couldn't trust Obama because he 'waffled'. At some point in time the Republican party is going to have to acknowledge the fact that...

He's either a racist, or he's faking it to pander to racists I'll wait on a whatever policies he exposes to make a final decision on if he's just more unfiltered or a real racist. I sometimes think that Trump sounds worse because other politicians filter so hard so as not to offend anyone. That he ...

I don't want to claim any sort of ownership over being the only person with this issue, so, where the conversation goes is where the conversation goes :) Just going back to this, what do your parents think about secular Judaism? Is their problem that you can't have morals without religious practices...

Yeah, to emphasize Angua's point, a class in Taxonomy or Evolutionary Biology is almost equal parts crash course in Latin/Greek, because a lot of organisms are basically named after what they look like. "Blue Wide Triangle Scaled Lizard" or such. If this is a funsies exercise, yeah, sure, ...

For context one of the reasons I posted is that you guys are A ) mostly pretty much emotionally mature individuals whose opinions and guidance I've watched and respected over the nearly 10 years I've been posting here, and B ) you all don't have any biases with respect to the players involved other ...

The more I read the more I get the impression that you've made a decision and that you are looking for justifications. A little, but I'm also upset about this and wanted feedback. I hadn't considered tackling this issue differently for each parent, truthfully. Not with respect to changing minds, bu...

And the difference is, Trump changed his language as soon as people at his rallies began to get violent. This is a fascinating thing to say. I don't mean this to be combative, but my understanding is that literally the opposite happened - Trump not only encouraged violence at his rallies from the g...

I think it's important to understand that it's very unlikely that you will ever change your parents' views on any of these matters. I absolutely understand this, which is upsetting to me because A ) my mother has spent the last 8 years trying to change my mind, and B ) my parents are bigots. wherea...

I absolutely grant that that is a thing. I'm seeing a lot more third party supporters bemoaning Trump. Liberals claimed that Trump supporters would riot and would never support Clinton. Come a few weeks later, we learn the opposite is also true. To be fair, violence is occurring both ways, and one v...